When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes--Desiderius Erasmus...
A room without books is like a body without a soul--Cicero...
You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend--Paul Sweeney...

Friday, July 27

Lightning Reviews

I have no idea whether or not anyone actually looks at my little rating system on my sidebar. I've been adding books for the last couple of weeks but haven't written any reviews. Mostly because there are enough reviews out there to get a good idea about the books. And, hey, it's summer and I'm being lazy :)

First up Me and Mr. Darcy by Alexandra Potter. It's Chick Lit with a twist. I should start by saying I'm not a huge fan of Chick Lit, but do like Alexandra Potter. Simply put Emily is a book geek looking for her Mr. Darcy. So far what she's found are rather pathetic souls who never fit in the Darcy mold. On the spur of the moment, and to avoid a trashy Mexican vacation with her best friend, she decides to spend the week around New Years on a Jane Austen tour of England. She finds herself on a guided tour with a bunch of old ladies and one obnoxious journalist doing a story on "why the fictional Mr. Darcy has earned the title of Man Most Women Would Love to Date." Of course he turns into the love interest. It's fun, it's light and it loosely follows P&P, though I know some have considered it a retelling of P&P, but I found it wasn't that serious about it. What kept it from being very good were regular visits of Darcy as the story unfolds, I'd have preferred to just follow Emily and the group around without the little off shoots of plot.

Next up Nora Roberts' High Noon. MUST read for any Nora fan. I found this very different from many of her books. The heroine, Phoebe, is an incredibly smart, sympathetic, loving, non-bitchy character, sometimes I find her heroines can be too bitchy (at least for me) but Phoebe is really different strong, but never comes across as a bitch. Duncan, our hero, is equally smart, kind, loving and not overly cranky. You know the feeling you get when you're so into a story that you simply sit and read and the next thing you know the book is finished and you want more. Everything about this book is right, the balance of romance to suspense, the relationship building between the h/h, the interaction between the families. You can find good reviews for this at Dear Author and an interesting commentary from Rosie

Last up for this week Linda Howard's Up Close and Dangerous. Hmmm, what to say? Not my favorite Howard but still a good solid read. Bailey is the young widow of a very rich man, she now controls the trust funds for her nasty adult step-children, who obviously hate her because of this. She desperately needs a vacation away from her everyday life and has planned a rafting trip with her brother and SIL. Cam is the pilot called in to fly her from Seattle to Colorado. The plane's been sabotaged and goes down, they survive, fall in love and figure out who's the bad guy. Solid, simple story telling, but not spectacular. Zeek has a good review up and links to another.

Jane, I have to agree about HN being one of NR's best. I really "liked" the charachters which doesn't always happen in her books.

As to the Linda Howard. It was more pronounced in this book, but if I think back to Open Season, we're in her head for large chunks of the book. I think this was probably different because for a large part of the story he's incapacitated--does that make sense??